152 



very much larger — for instance, 8 meters instead of 2.4 meters — 

 without increasing the cost. Accordingly, it will be possible to make 

 arrays of such telescopes to achieve the high resolution of interfer- 

 ometry. 



Mr. Brown. Would those be using new lightweight segmented 

 mirror technologies, computer-controlled? 



Dr. Friedman. Yes. 



Mr. Brown. I am always fascinated by the speed with which de- 

 velopments take place in the tools of science, but the problems that 

 we have here are less of that nature than they are of a different 

 nature. 



I am interested in trying to understand a little bit better the way 

 in which the scientific community relates both within itself, for ex- 

 ample, from the Academy, the NRC, the disciplinary societies, the 

 ICSU. And I assume that through long and troubled experience 

 you have developed ways of reaching policy decisions and so on. I 

 would like to understand that better, but I won't bother you to de- 

 scribe that now. 



I am more interested in how the scientific community, speaking 

 as one voice, relates to the political community both in the execu- 

 tive branch and in the legislative branch, because here we seem to 

 find some real problems. I think in this committee we are interest- 

 ed in doing something about the backlog of new starts in the space 

 program, for example, but we are constrained by the degree to 

 which the administration supports these in the current budgetary 

 climate. 



I am interested to know how you interact with the executive 

 branch in trying to establish priorities for major scientific initia- 

 tives and if there is anything that can be done to improve that 

 process. 



Dr. Friedman. We do have welcome access to the OSTP, and gen- 

 erally the desires of the scientific community are in tune with the 

 priorities that are expressed by Jay Keyworth, for example. 



Mr. Brown. Your priorities are established by Jay Keyworth, or 

 the other way around? 



Dr. Friedman. We establish our priorities, usually early on. By 

 the time a mission gets exposure in the agencies, in the public 

 arena, it becomes a matter of importance, of course, to the adminis- 

 tration to express its views. And if I take specific examples, OSTP, 

 which represents the administration's attitude, has been strongly 

 supportive of the Hubble Telescope and strongly supportive of the 

 VLBA. 



I would say certainly in astronomy there have been strong ex- 

 pressions of support for every priority developed by the Academy 

 studies, both the Field committee report on the 10-year goals 

 in astronomy and the strategies which are produced by the Space 

 Science Board. 



In the process of producing those strategies, the agencies which 

 would assume the mission roles are very much involved at all 

 steps. NASA views the Space Science Board as an invaluable advi- 

 sory asset, and if one looks at the 25-year record, NASA has fol- 

 lowed the recommendations of the Space Science Board in a vast 

 majority of cases and has been able to achieve a surprisingly large 

 portion of the recommended goals of the scientific community. 



